I was set apart, we were set apart, we patients in white nightgowns, and avoided clearly, though unconsciously, like lepers.

Recovery was not to be seen as a smooth slope, but as a series of radical steps, each inconceivable, impossible, from the step below.

The diseases which destroy a man are no less natural than the instincts which preserve him.

There was never yet philosopher That could endure the toothache patiently.

I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worth while.

Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick.

The sleep of a sick man has keen eyes. It is a sleep unsleeping.

I dislike helplessness in other people and in myself, and this is by far my greatest fear of illness.

I do not find illness an eminence, and I do not understand how people can use it to draw attention to themselves since the attention they draw is nearly always reluctantly given and unpleasantly carried out.

We are so fond of one another, because our ailments are the same.